The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) seeks to digitize and automate its current paper-based records management processes to make information and records across all offices more accessible and interoperable. The existing paper-based processes make it challenging to react and respond to requests, which greatly increased throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. These inefficiencies result in time consuming manual searches for records and could cause delays in processing. The physical space needed to house the records is significant and growing, which requires resources and consumes valuable space. Digitizing and automating outdated paper-based processes will enable employees to work more effectively and efficiently, and better serve Virginians. Since many records are currently only maintained in paper form, there is no contingency plan should the records be lost or damaged by fire, flood, or other natural disaster.

Over the last three months, VDH has completed current state assessments of three priority offices (Office of Drinking Water (ODW), Office of Vital Records (OVR), and Office of Licensure and Certification (OLC)), continued planning for the scanning activities and assessed the digital storage solutions available through the VITA catalogue. In the next quarter, the focus will be on finalizing the storage solution design and plan for scanning activities, and digitize records for the three priority offices. These accomplishments in the first few months have set the Records Management Initiative on the path to successfully digitize VDH’s paper records within the ARPA SLFRF funding window.